BioProject

We combined morphological, mitochondrial, and nuclear phylogenomic data to address phylogenetic and species delimitation questions in cave-limited Cicurina spiders from central Texas. More...

We combined morphological, mitochondrial, and nuclear phylogenomic data to address phylogenetic and species delimitation questions in cave-limited Cicurina spiders from central Texas. We focused special effort on specimens and cave locations in the San Antonio region (Bexar County), home to four eyeless species listed as US Federally Endangered. Our sequence capture experiments resulted in the recovery of ~ 200-400 homologous ultra-conserved element (UCE) nuclear loci across taxa, and nearly complete COI mitochondrial DNA sequences from the same set of individuals. Some of these nuclear and mitochondrial sequences were recovered from “standard” museum specimens without special preservation of DNA material, including museum specimens preserved in the 1990s. Multiple phylogenetic analyses of the UCE data agree in the recovery of two major lineages of eyeless Cicurina in Texas. These lineages also differ in mitochondrial clade membership, female genitalic morphology, degree of troglomorphy (as measured by relative leg length), and are mostly allopatric across much of Texas. Rare sympatry was confirmed in Bexar County, where members of the two major clades sometimes co-exist in the same karst feature. Both nuclear phylogenomic and mitochondrial data indicate the existence of undescribed species from the San Antonio region, although further sampling and collection of adult specimens is needed to explicitly test these hypotheses. Our data support the two following species synonymies (Cicurina venii Gertsch 1992 = Cicurina madla Gertsch 1992; Cicurina loftini Cokendolpher 2004 = Cicurina vespera Gertsch 1992), formally proposed here. These taxonomic changes have important conservation implications, again highlighting the fundamental importance of robust taxonomy in conservation research. Less...